"...Complaints have been filed with Saanich police, the RCMP and Elections Canada..."

Complaints?

WeDon'tNeedYourStinkin'ComplaintsVille

The header above, is how we ended a recent post about patient-zero in the RoboCall saga.

It is a story about one riding, Saanich Gulf-Islands, where fraudulent robo-calls were clearly made in the name of a non-existent front group during the 2008 campaign.

So.

In the wake of all that, and some very, very suspicious third party advertising that was traced back to some most interesting folks, complaints were made to the local police, the RCMP, and Elections Canada.

And what happened?

Well, according to the Liberal candidate in Saanich at the time, whose campaign filed the complaints, with evidence aplenty of nefarious goings on, absolutely nothing.

Here is just part of that candidate, Briony Penn's, story:

...Complaints were filed with the RCMP by Bill Graham, president of the NDP Saanich-Gulf Island riding association, the person whose name was fraudulently used in the call. Nothing came of that police investigation. We received dozens of emails, letters and phone calls encouraging us to make an official complaint to Elections Canada and many academics, Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch and Will Horter of Dogwood Initiative—one of the groups named by current Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver as an “enemy of Canada” waded into express their concerns for the dangerous precedent that had been set. The local mainstream Victoria newspaper referred to it as “spoofing,” sparking a response by Rebecca Johnson, associate Professor of Law at the University of Victoria who wrote an editorial response (Times Colonist, October 25, 2008) “to treat it as a spoof is to undercut public respect not only for democracy and democratic process but also for the rule of law. We deserve better.”

Our riding association, led by law student volunteer Sebastian Silva with riding association president Paul McKivett, put together a formidable complaint package to Elections Canada on all the irregularities dated February 5^th of 2009. This included all the alleged breaches of the Canada Elections Act and the Criminal Code for both the robocall and third party Conservative advertising which we believed were linked, though had no evidence. We received this response on March 2, 2009 from legal counsel for Elections Canada, John Dickson. (page 1, page 2) “Our investigator found no one who had actually been influenced in their vote because of the purported telephone call. Nor was he able to identify the source of the person or persons who actually made the calls. As a result of the foregoing, our investigation has now been concluded.” With regard to the third party advertisers, Dickson wrote “it is within the discretion of the Political Financing and Audit Directorate to refer the matter to the Commissioner for his consideration.”...

Now.

Just think about this for a minute.

In 2008, Saanich Gulf-Islands was patient zero and the contagion was not dealt with in any meaningful way.

Thus, we got 2011, wherein the virus had clearly spread all across the country.

And if we don't deal with the contagion seriously this time?

What, exactly, do you think this malignant disease will do to us next time?

_______

Dave, over at The Galloping Beaver, has the details of the third party advertising for the Con who won that time, Mr. Gary Lunn, nailed to the wall...